i really like the fact that we can adjust the speed of the song...but it's only available in the riff repeater>accelerator section which is fine and for certain riffs in songs it will be helpful for me...but i just want to be able to rehearse the song and adjust the speed for the full song...it's going to be way too tedious going back and forth in the riff repeater to get a song down if it comes to it..

I would personally like to be able to "tag" together sections in RR, to be played together. Then one could select the whole song (all sections), if they wanted.

that would work too! i just find doing a riff at a time...it's pretty slow...i don't want to try and come off like 'i'm such a good guitar player that blah blah'...it's just such a slow process that i could go find a tab online and figure out how to play the song without the game..

1. Set speed implemented. And also, implemented the way that I had asked for (1% increments all the way to 100%).
2. Better DLC Store layout.

3. [Seemingly] quicker loading times in riff repeater.

4. New "precision tuner" comments at the top of the screen, when tuning, such as "Your guitar output seems very high, you may want to lower the volume knob on your guitar."
5. Riff-repeater updated design (feels a little smoother).

6. Accelerator no longer "forces you" to speed up, when hitting 100% of the notes at a given speed.

All the above are very much appreciated additions to the game.

Now... the negatives (brief explanations included):

1. Still 30 lives in riff repeater.

(Thoughts):

Why???? Whyyyyyyy?!!!! If you can make it 30, can't you make it 9999999? Isn't the point of 30 to be such a large number that the attempts won't be exhausted?

It's been assumed that the programmers cannot remove the "lives" system, for whatever reason. That is understandable. What's not understandable is the arbitrary number "30." Did someone throw a dart at a dartboard one morning to decide this?

While 30 lives certainly takes time to exhaust, when I was mid-leveling an extremely difficult and fast solo (Stone Cold Crazy), the 30 life limit was extremely frustrating as I'd run it down every 10 - 15 minutes. Then I'd have the punishment of going back to the riff repeater menu, having to select the same solo again, tuning the guitar, and finally being able to try again.

It's not a complete priority, and I'm aware many here will say that the 30 lives is enough-- but I'm sure everyone would agree that the "lives" system really should just disappear altogether. If it can't, the number should at least be larger.

2. Accelerator still cuts you off mid-practice if you miss a certain amount of notes.

(Thoughts):

This is completely unacceptable and should've been addressed at the same time "Set Speed" was. The issue is certainly mitigated now, due to the ability to set your own speed, but it's still irritating and interferes with practicing the song.

Why this "feature" (I use the term loosely) was EVER implemented I still have problems understanding.

How did you guys listen to the person who thought of this? Or the lives system? I picture a serious guy in a suit saying the following at a staff meeting:

"Hey I know! We can't just LET people practice a section 500 times, or miss a lot of notes when they're slowing the song down!!! If we did that, they might think that they suck!! Lets just gently kick them out of practice after they mess up more than a few times, that way they will still have the illusion that they don't suck and will love our game. Otherwise, if they see how bad they are, they might complain the game isn't teaching them guitar!!!"

Of course, I don't think that practicing a section 500 times or missing a lot of notes means anyone sucks. I just assume a guy in a suit, who never played guitar, somehow was in charge and came up with that. It reminds me of the insanity of the "try again" in leveler, when you miss a certain amount of notes. The "insanity" I'm referring to is that it doesn't force an early "try again" when you miss too many notes to be able to level the section... no... that would make too much sense. It just kicks you out after a certain percentage of missed notes-- but if you miss less than whatever that forced "try again" percentage is-- it'll let you get all the way to the end even if you've missed too many to level up the section. It also lets you...for some strange reason... miss slightly more notes in Leveler, than in Accelerator, before the forced "try again!!!" comes on screen (from missing too many notes).

3. The DLC store still [seemingly] lacks the ability to preview songs.

(Thoughts):

Yes, I can easily youtube the songs. Yes, I read the forums so I see when people post the YT links to the songs for me.

Still, rockband has the ability to preview a song in their "DLC Store." You guys should too. It just makes it a lot more convenient, especially if someone didn't realize a certain song was in the store and didn't have a computer close at hand.

4. Still cannot "Set Mastery" for a song as a whole in performance mode.

I'm happy that we still have the working "Leveler Glitch" to emulate this for now, but really, this should have been implemented when "Set Mastery" in Riff Repeater was implemented. The idea of a "test" to take in order to 'earn" the section's mastery is certainly understandable, and an option for such would be great.

But when you're *forcing* people to pass this arbitrary test, that's when it becomes frustrating. Especially when the "test" is inconsistent from song to song-- allowing gross amounts of errors on easy sections in some songs, but requiring nigh-impossible 100% requirements on long 2-handed tapping sections (Star Spangled Banner bridge section). Adding to the frustration is when you feel you hit all the notes in such a long section, but 1 or 2 may not have registered (or you may have not realized you missed them). Such a small amount of notes in such long sections should have some room for error, and a forced test without that slight room for error is what makes the idea more frustrating than helpful in many occasions.

When you set mastery in riff repeater, it should remain like that when you play the song, regardless of whether you "pass" the section or not. Or, even better, a separate option to simply "Set Mastery" to ALL SECTIONS would alleviate the issue altogether, as well as eliminate the tedious requirement of going section by section to raise the mastery all the way. It can be very annoying having to replay the exact same solo in two different arrangements because they don't carry over, while similar sections in the same arrangement do carry over. There are other instances as well where the ability would be helpful, but I think the point is made.

5. Still note registry issues in free speed and the first dynamic "set speed" in Accelerator.

(Thoughts):

Bends, slides, and harmonics still tend to register slightly differently in the "Freeze-When-You-Make-A-Mistake" mode the game offers, such as in free-speed and the dynamic set speed of Accelerator. It differs in which playing a note a certain way that would register as correct in the leveler and actual song, registers as incorrect in the "freeze-mistake" modes of the game.

6. The "Resume Acceleration" option in Accelerator is poorly named.

(Thoughts):

What it should say is "Restart Acceleration" or "Restart At Current Speed," because the way it's named now is slightly confusing and at first appears redundant with the option to "Resume" in the same pause menu. Some people may not understand what it actually does, or ever use it, with the way it's currently named.

Minor issue, but thought I'd reference it.

7. There is still no indicator [other than crowd response] of whether or not you are hitting the correct notes in Master Mode, until watching the subsequent replay.

(Thoughts):

I understand that the idea of Master Mode is to "be on your own," and to have to play from memory. That said, it would be helpful at times to know when the game thinks you're playing something wrong. You don't have to tell us if the note is too high or too low (though, an option to do so would be nice), but at least just telling us if something is being detected as "Wrong" can help us see if our timing is off or if we're simply playing the wrong notes. It would be much more helpful towards memorizing the song if we didn't have to sit and watch the replay to see what the game could've indicated during the play-through.

-----

These criticisms aren't here to attack the Rocksmith Devs or to illustrate that I don't appreciate the recent update-- I do. I just wanted to ask some questions as to why certain things weren't addressed-- especially things that seem completely relevant to parts of the game that were recently patched.

I think there has been a slight failure of communication between ubisoft and the players here on Rocksmith.

We the players should take the blame for the first time. We were not clear in our requests.

The speed control and set mastery. We did not ask for it in riff repeater. But that is ok, the speed control there is fine..set mastery there was
a waste of time since we already had that in leveler.

WE WANT SPEED CONTROL AND SET MASTERY IN >>>> PRACTICE MODE <<<<< not riff repeater
We want to pick a song..choose practice, instead of perform...start it, pause it and SET MASTERY and or SET SPEED for the WHOLE SONG.

These criticisms aren't here to attack the Rocksmith Devs or to illustrate that I don't appreciate the recent update-- I do. I just wanted to ask some questions as to why certain things weren't addressed-- especially things that seem completely relevant to parts of the game that were recently patched.

Great points! when you opened a new thread with the attention icon, I thought: oh no, another nay sayer! But I could not be more wrong. This is great constructive criticism. Well done! do you by any chance work with software requirements or QA?

Edit: just a comment about your criticisms... many of the issues mentioned here would be better addressed in the Options menu, for example:

I really like the changes made to the DLC area, however I feel it would be nice if when you bought a song pack the songs would be marked as bought in the single song area. For example Say I bought the 3 Doors Down song pack in the song pack menu area it is marked as purchased however in the single song area the songs from the pack are not marked as purchased. This isn't a huge deal but I on more then one occasion have been looking through the single song section because I have left over points and thought to myself I already have that and have to double check in the pack menu to make sure. It would be a nice little change for folks like me that are severely lacking in the memory department.